27th August 2024, 12:40 AM
(This post was last modified: 6th September 2024, 12:58 AM by Overbeing. Edited 4 times in total.)
Campaigns:
The PR2 and PR3 campaign contests were a lot of fun, but ended up with a high variance of quality and with a lot of work that went to waste. They had everyone scrambling to make as many decent levels as they could in the themes or working really hard on one great level, and what if it isn't chosen?
I would have a team of contracted level makers and level testers who are working together and spreading out the load. By working together, they would have more time to work on the things that they are good at and give one another feedback. Ideally they would be contracted/paid in some way so that they could put a lot of work into it.
The community made levels of these games is what brings them to life, but some all out levels that are the first things people are playing and set the tone for the whole game is important. (I would love to be involved. I think I have a great grasp of level design and campaign design. I have been working on my own side campaign project on the profile The Duck. They could be elevated a lot more, but they are a solid proof of concept. (and the project is not done, but has 24 levels atm.))
I would separate out the campaign into themes that i talk about below, but having a designated tutorial would be nice. then having a racing campaign, a challenge campaign and a non-race/battle campaign would be awesome. that way each can focus on what it does best instead of one campaign that is trying to do it all.
Menus:
the goal is to help players find the types of levels that they want to play and other players that want the same thing. PR2 ended up with most players playing the campaign levels when looking for races. The ATB and Weekly lists didn't see a lot of action for groups.
PR3 set up the campaign as more of a trial experience, but because there was no multiplayer campaign tab, they didn't really get as much attention as the pr2 campaign. And the campaign was trying to do a lot of different things that didn't always lend itself to multiplayer races or replayability. like the tutorial levels. If there are too many different tabs though, it'll spread out the players too much and will make it harder for players to find the types of races they want to play with others.
The pr3 queued tab was great for helper racers find one another, but having a hybrid could be really nice. when someone queues in the multiplayer campaign tab, itll also be added to the active queue tab.
Solo:
Tutorial (levels that introduce blocks and mechanics.)
Time trial race campaign (levels designed for racing and/or time trials. Having more campaigns come out in the future will also help, but these should be the levels that people will want to race on over and over, and to get records on. Cosmetics and achievements will also center around them.)
Challenge campaign time trials (for the hard core players, some difficult and challenging levels that give good rewards upon completion)
Featured levels time trials (level of the day/week/month/season levels picked by the staff or voted by the community. Maybe some of these could be added to a campaign at some point too! They will likely have achievements on them as well, but maybe with a time limit.)
Some tabs with some of the more useful things that someone would search, like Highest Rated, most favorited, most played, new, hot (meaning popular and recent), weekly best
Custom map time trials/solo play (a search menu, but you won't be added to the multiplayer queue)
Multiplayer:
Active queue (the levels that people are wanting to find racers for should be on the side of the multiplayer menu at all times, but can be expanded to full screen and you can do an advance search and search for specific race type tags of the queued levels)
Races:
Race campaign: the same campaign(s) for time trials, but now people are racing their hearts out on them. Some will have been designed for consistency, but others will use elements to allow the players to interact to increase variance and be more casual. This all be a great place to earn cosmetics and finish achievements.)
Featured levels (the same featured levels, but now in a multiplayer queue, limited time rewards should be on them.)
The same tabs for common useful searches. ( like Highest Rated, most favorited, most played, new, hot (meaning popular and recent), weekly best)
Battles or non-race tab.
Battle campaign (a compact selection of some good non-racing maps that introduce the different types and give people some worth mastering and playing over and over. Cosmetics and achievements!)
Featured battles (community made levels that are being highlighted, possibly with contests. Cosmetics and achievements, possibly limited time)
Highest rated battles, most played most favorited, you get the idea.
Search feature:
(Being able to swap between solo and multiplayer searches should be easy. You should also be able to choose as you select a level.)
Advanced search. (Multiple searches at once. Ex, levels with over 100 plays and over a 3.0 rating).
Search by gold medal time/length, date published, featured level creators (maybe there could be some badges that level makers earn when they have a featured level that signifies to players that theirs are of high quality.), featured levels,
Search by level Tags. Race, battle, frust/trial, trap, don't move/idle, puzzle, teamwork, pathfinding, glitch, long, short, scenery, silly, concept, adventure, ect.
Maybe allow players to create new tags for levels and searches.
Favorite levels. Pulls up levels that you have favorited. I would love it to have a search bar and for you to be able to add your own tags to them to be able to sort by. And I'd love if you could look at other people's favorite levels list.
Random Map Mode:
It would be fun to be able to race or solo a bunch of random maps. being able to use filters to only have certain tags, lengths, number of plays, featured creators, number of finishers or gold medals, ect. would be awesome too.
Shop:
You can use your in game currency to purchase cosmetics. Shows you active quests that award currency and links you to the levels they are on.
Community:
link to contests, discord, forums, social media, featured levels.
Leaderboards, sorted by different criteria like most gold medals, highest level, best of week/month/year/all time. Challenge winners. (Give racers a reason to show off their skills and climb on top.)
Daily/weekly/seasonally challenges, either give parts outright or an in game currency to use at the shop. With links
friends list (being able to write notes on each friend would be awesome. example: we raced and had fun. they have amazing levels. a really strong racer.)
Editor:
level, block, sticker. Being able to load in offline would be great.
Being able to restrict which hats are ok to use or even force a specific hat on everyone from the start would be great. Forcing specific stats from the start would also be nice, just like being able to set the gravity, setting and/or adjusting the speed, jump, accel would be very helpful.
Be able to select blocks, copy them, rotate, mirror, paste, move them.
being able to make your own stickers would be awesome. it would allow level makers to decorate better and with less effort.
Being able to have level collaborations with other level makers would be awesome. each level maker's name would be on the level and it would show up in each of their profiles, but the level would be the same ID. This would encourage players to work together and make things of really high quality.
Mechanics:
Zooming. (when going fast in a level, it is impossible to see what is coming up. I'd love to be able to scroll the mouse wheel or set hotkeys for zooming in and out. Having a feature that zoomed out when you speed up and zoomed in when you slow down would be nice to be able to toggle on and off.)
there should be a competitive mode toggle when selecting a level. leaderboards and medals should only use set stats that make sense and limit to only cosmetic hats, or maybe a split leaderboard for competitive and casual times. This'll give more competitive racers show their skill. It'll also lower the barrier of entry for newer players to compete with players who have more hats and stats.
The Hats and the stats in platform racing are too powerful. Some are awesome for fun and casual gameplay, but many break the game, or at least many levels. being able to restrict hats would be nice, but I would power them down so that it would be less necessary.
Edit 1. Ramblings:
The more I think about it, the more I would prefer it players were not able to change stats, but I understand that they are pretty ingrained into the game. The upsides of set stats are that levels can be designed for the stats that everyone will be using. the level maker will be able to use blocks and settings to effect the players stats. It would also unify the leaderboards and the medal system so that players are all on the same playing field. Gold medals could get too easy for high level players and take some of the challenge away. It feels bad for a new player to not only have less developed skills and knowledge about the game, but to also be slower in every way?
otherwise, a Regulation Mode and a Casual Mode, could solve a lot of the issues. Regulation mode would automatically restrict hats and set stats.
I would love for world record ghosts, gold medal ghosts and personal best ghosts to be available on every level when playing solo.
I would prefer a thumbs up/thumbs down or
system instead of a 5 star system. Players tend to interact with levels with either 5 or 1 star anyway. But a level with a bunch of 3 star votes ends up looking the same as a level with equal 1 star and 5 star votes. It also lets people try to bomb the ratings of level just to be mean. I think that showing the up votes, the down votes, the times favorited, and the plays a level has is more informative than the rating.
Id love to be able to tell if I have played a level before when it looking through the menus.
Hot levels! a tab showing custom levels that have been played or interacted with the most in the recent days would be awesome.
followed level makers: In addition to being able to mark favorite levels, it would be nice to follow or favorite level makers and have a tab in your profile by the favorite levels that pulls up all of the levels of your followed level makers. I would also want an advanced filter in just about every menu that has custom levels. sort by tags, level types, ect.
cups/tourneys: inspired by mario kart, it would be nice if campaigns were put into cups and you could choose to race in cups of 3 or 4 levels with the same players back to back and have a score system with prizes at the end. Being able to set up custom cups would be fun too!
sending race invites to friends, pinging players by using @ username in chat, being able to mute notifications. Receiving notifications and invites from inside levels and level editor.
being able to set up private groups by hosting a level or cup and sending invites instead of having it public would be really nice. Being able to have the invite pull players from other servers or from inside another level or the level editor would be nice too.
A cosmetic and season system like the one in the game Fall Guys would make a lot of sense. I would have 2 currencies. Fred Coins and Creator Coins. Fred coins will be obtained from official maps like the campaigns, spotlighted maps or achievements. Creator coins could be earned for every medal you get in custom maps and by winning races. Different cosmetics could be purchased in the store with the different currencies.
Having Daily, Weekly and Seasonal achievements would be a great way to reward players for just getting on the game, or for going all in on a season.
Having the 2 different coins would reward players for playing the way that they would want to anyway. It gives player a reason to master the campaign and spotlight levels, play random levels that they have never played before, and to race on anything and everything against random players.
I am personally not a fan of the Super Jump. It probably prevents players from getting trapped in levels, but it feels slow means that map makers need to make levels with it in mind, which to me feels limiting instead of opening up new fun possibilities. But I won't complain too much if it stays.
It would be cool to be able to set modes on levels that essentially gave a permanent buff/power to the player, like having permanent items. Having the players all start with a specific infinite item, a specific hat, super flying cowboy mode also comes to mind. I don't have too many specific ideas on what that would look like, but I think that there are a lot of possibilities. there would have to be some sort of visual marker to show how the level is modified when on the level select screens.
Edit 2:
Having checkpoints and/or unsafe blocks would be nice.
having saved backgrounds
be able to copy, adjust, resize and customize stickers.
copying blocks or art, loading a new level, then pasting
be able to restart a level at any time. hotkey? for multiplayer this could start a new lobby for the level and take you there.
the ability to see the level name and level maker from inside the level easily. description, tags, ratings, be able to favorite and follow the level maker while playing the level and in the end of level screen.
The atmospheric effect that pr2 has is a good idea, but being able to turn it on or off would go a long way.
one of the issues it made was not being able to find the color you used because the atmospheric effect always made the color look different, so you cant find the color you used again. being able to hotkey some colors in the level editor would be nice.
being able to set up your own custom cups/campaigns and post them. even if they don't contain your own levels.
the ability to detach the camera from the player and look around the map while playing. that way the player can plan ahead or solve a puzzle. the ability for the level maker to lock this ability would be good too.
giving the level maker the ability to adjust the players camera would be cool. make it zoom in or out or even detach it and zoom way out and play with your tiny character running around the screen. then when you get to the edge, the camera jumps forward to another "panel".
being able to block the "art off" option for a level.
race against friends ghosts.
linking finish blocks so that on an objective level, you only need one of each of the linked ones. the ability to set a finish block amount would also be nice, that way they don't need to get all of them.
effect lines or zones instead of just hitting blocks with heads. cross a line or enter a zone to finish, change hats, get an item, change stats, change gravity. then things revert when you leave the zone or hit a reset line.
be able to draw on multiple layers on the same "layer". Overall, modernizing the art system to be more similar to art programs today.
Planning for types of players.
The lead designer of Magic the Gathering, Mark Rosewater, has a system that I like that applies here.
He has archetypes of players that they design cards for:
Timmy: Casual, Exciting, Variance, Social, often Young.
Johnny: Innovative, Creative, Self Expression, Puzzles to solve, Routing.
Spike: Competitive, Consistent, Optimizing, Goal Oriented.
Vorthos: Story, Aesthetic, Character, Art
Making sure that there are game modes and support for each type of player is important.
A Timmy wants to see cool items and effects. They want to battle with weapons. Get their friends involved and make new friends in the game. They tend to come and go more quickly, but be most of the player base at any given time.
Having user friendly modes where they can play over and over, and even if they aren't the best at the game, they still have a chance of winning is important. which is where high variance comes into play.
They need something cool, flashy and epic. These are the types of players who love seeing Don't Move levels or seeing simple glitches. Then get in the editor and make some quick levels themselves.
Having flashy and cool levels and effects that are user friendly, having a user friendly level editor and letting them interact with one another and be social is a great way to get a Timmy and keep them for as long as possible.
Timmy won't want to play much single player, they will be drawn to multiplayer a lot more.
Johnny: They want a challenge to solve. More likely to try to find a faster world record route or even a shortcut. This is the type of player that will want to break the game in their own way and make levels that could only be from them. Giving them ways to innovate and express themselves is important both in racing and level making. They want to find new combinations and ways to interact with the game.
Finely tuned, interesting mechanics, depth of mechanics, complicated or wacky elements that are consistent enough to use in a practical way.
These are the players who discover new interactions or glitches, master mechanics and make progress in the game.
A Johnny will use single player to explore and to solve. When playing multiplayer, they will want ways to show off their style and approach racing in a unique way.
Spike: A Spike wants to win. They will level up to get faster, they will master the levels that people race on and win again and again. They will learn the routes and try to optimize to get world records. They will not only beat the hardest level, they will try to do it better and faster. They will beat their friends and will be on top of that leaderboard. They want consistency. A race shouldn't be left to chance. The best player should win every time. They want ways to compete and show off their cultivated skills. Raise the bar, then raise it again.
Spike will play multiplayer to race and single player to time trial and beat challenges. As long as there are wins or rewards to be had, they will go for them.
Vorthos: They want a mascot, characters, a story, lore, theming, setting. Having custom cups and campaigns would help make levels that fit together in a story. You could do them in chapters, sequels, beginning middle and end. Even having a cute little guy here in there throughout a campaign can go a long way. I would want some of the campaign levels to have a story to them and even fit together. Some of the backgrounds and default art should fit right into some main themes of the game. Fred the Giant Cactus is a great example. One small thing for these types of players to attach themselves to.
When designing levels, game modes and features, I would be trying to either make something specific and perfect for one of these types of players or I would make sure that it had something for 2 or more of these players to like about it.
having tags on levels will help each player type find the types of levels that they want to play.
A good campaign would start by teaching well for everyone, but the young Timmy especially, introduce characters and story for Vorthos, have flashy epic gameplay for Timmy, introduce interesting mechanics for Johnny, give Spike ways to compete and win all within the first handful of levels. Then have modes that are tailor made for them to grow into as they find out what type of player they are and discover what they want out of the game.
I think that is what has made Platform Racing so successful. It really gave all types of players a reason to play and get involved.
It is a new era of gaming, and PR4 has a chance to be very intentional and successful with the way it is presented with the menus and game modes that are available.
As long as the community doesn't get too spread apart with the different modes. Which is why having overlap with target audiences with content, as well as challenges and achievements giving every player a reason to try out each type. At least until they get the reward and can go back to the way they want to play.
Long Live Platform Racing.
The PR2 and PR3 campaign contests were a lot of fun, but ended up with a high variance of quality and with a lot of work that went to waste. They had everyone scrambling to make as many decent levels as they could in the themes or working really hard on one great level, and what if it isn't chosen?
I would have a team of contracted level makers and level testers who are working together and spreading out the load. By working together, they would have more time to work on the things that they are good at and give one another feedback. Ideally they would be contracted/paid in some way so that they could put a lot of work into it.
The community made levels of these games is what brings them to life, but some all out levels that are the first things people are playing and set the tone for the whole game is important. (I would love to be involved. I think I have a great grasp of level design and campaign design. I have been working on my own side campaign project on the profile The Duck. They could be elevated a lot more, but they are a solid proof of concept. (and the project is not done, but has 24 levels atm.))
I would separate out the campaign into themes that i talk about below, but having a designated tutorial would be nice. then having a racing campaign, a challenge campaign and a non-race/battle campaign would be awesome. that way each can focus on what it does best instead of one campaign that is trying to do it all.
Menus:
the goal is to help players find the types of levels that they want to play and other players that want the same thing. PR2 ended up with most players playing the campaign levels when looking for races. The ATB and Weekly lists didn't see a lot of action for groups.
PR3 set up the campaign as more of a trial experience, but because there was no multiplayer campaign tab, they didn't really get as much attention as the pr2 campaign. And the campaign was trying to do a lot of different things that didn't always lend itself to multiplayer races or replayability. like the tutorial levels. If there are too many different tabs though, it'll spread out the players too much and will make it harder for players to find the types of races they want to play with others.
The pr3 queued tab was great for helper racers find one another, but having a hybrid could be really nice. when someone queues in the multiplayer campaign tab, itll also be added to the active queue tab.
Solo:
Tutorial (levels that introduce blocks and mechanics.)
Time trial race campaign (levels designed for racing and/or time trials. Having more campaigns come out in the future will also help, but these should be the levels that people will want to race on over and over, and to get records on. Cosmetics and achievements will also center around them.)
Challenge campaign time trials (for the hard core players, some difficult and challenging levels that give good rewards upon completion)
Featured levels time trials (level of the day/week/month/season levels picked by the staff or voted by the community. Maybe some of these could be added to a campaign at some point too! They will likely have achievements on them as well, but maybe with a time limit.)
Some tabs with some of the more useful things that someone would search, like Highest Rated, most favorited, most played, new, hot (meaning popular and recent), weekly best
Custom map time trials/solo play (a search menu, but you won't be added to the multiplayer queue)
Multiplayer:
Active queue (the levels that people are wanting to find racers for should be on the side of the multiplayer menu at all times, but can be expanded to full screen and you can do an advance search and search for specific race type tags of the queued levels)
Races:
Race campaign: the same campaign(s) for time trials, but now people are racing their hearts out on them. Some will have been designed for consistency, but others will use elements to allow the players to interact to increase variance and be more casual. This all be a great place to earn cosmetics and finish achievements.)
Featured levels (the same featured levels, but now in a multiplayer queue, limited time rewards should be on them.)
The same tabs for common useful searches. ( like Highest Rated, most favorited, most played, new, hot (meaning popular and recent), weekly best)
Battles or non-race tab.
Battle campaign (a compact selection of some good non-racing maps that introduce the different types and give people some worth mastering and playing over and over. Cosmetics and achievements!)
Featured battles (community made levels that are being highlighted, possibly with contests. Cosmetics and achievements, possibly limited time)
Highest rated battles, most played most favorited, you get the idea.
Search feature:
(Being able to swap between solo and multiplayer searches should be easy. You should also be able to choose as you select a level.)
Advanced search. (Multiple searches at once. Ex, levels with over 100 plays and over a 3.0 rating).
Search by gold medal time/length, date published, featured level creators (maybe there could be some badges that level makers earn when they have a featured level that signifies to players that theirs are of high quality.), featured levels,
Search by level Tags. Race, battle, frust/trial, trap, don't move/idle, puzzle, teamwork, pathfinding, glitch, long, short, scenery, silly, concept, adventure, ect.
Maybe allow players to create new tags for levels and searches.
Favorite levels. Pulls up levels that you have favorited. I would love it to have a search bar and for you to be able to add your own tags to them to be able to sort by. And I'd love if you could look at other people's favorite levels list.
Random Map Mode:
It would be fun to be able to race or solo a bunch of random maps. being able to use filters to only have certain tags, lengths, number of plays, featured creators, number of finishers or gold medals, ect. would be awesome too.
Shop:
You can use your in game currency to purchase cosmetics. Shows you active quests that award currency and links you to the levels they are on.
Community:
link to contests, discord, forums, social media, featured levels.
Leaderboards, sorted by different criteria like most gold medals, highest level, best of week/month/year/all time. Challenge winners. (Give racers a reason to show off their skills and climb on top.)
Daily/weekly/seasonally challenges, either give parts outright or an in game currency to use at the shop. With links
friends list (being able to write notes on each friend would be awesome. example: we raced and had fun. they have amazing levels. a really strong racer.)
Editor:
level, block, sticker. Being able to load in offline would be great.
Being able to restrict which hats are ok to use or even force a specific hat on everyone from the start would be great. Forcing specific stats from the start would also be nice, just like being able to set the gravity, setting and/or adjusting the speed, jump, accel would be very helpful.
Be able to select blocks, copy them, rotate, mirror, paste, move them.
being able to make your own stickers would be awesome. it would allow level makers to decorate better and with less effort.
Being able to have level collaborations with other level makers would be awesome. each level maker's name would be on the level and it would show up in each of their profiles, but the level would be the same ID. This would encourage players to work together and make things of really high quality.
Mechanics:
Zooming. (when going fast in a level, it is impossible to see what is coming up. I'd love to be able to scroll the mouse wheel or set hotkeys for zooming in and out. Having a feature that zoomed out when you speed up and zoomed in when you slow down would be nice to be able to toggle on and off.)
there should be a competitive mode toggle when selecting a level. leaderboards and medals should only use set stats that make sense and limit to only cosmetic hats, or maybe a split leaderboard for competitive and casual times. This'll give more competitive racers show their skill. It'll also lower the barrier of entry for newer players to compete with players who have more hats and stats.
The Hats and the stats in platform racing are too powerful. Some are awesome for fun and casual gameplay, but many break the game, or at least many levels. being able to restrict hats would be nice, but I would power them down so that it would be less necessary.
Edit 1. Ramblings:
The more I think about it, the more I would prefer it players were not able to change stats, but I understand that they are pretty ingrained into the game. The upsides of set stats are that levels can be designed for the stats that everyone will be using. the level maker will be able to use blocks and settings to effect the players stats. It would also unify the leaderboards and the medal system so that players are all on the same playing field. Gold medals could get too easy for high level players and take some of the challenge away. It feels bad for a new player to not only have less developed skills and knowledge about the game, but to also be slower in every way?
otherwise, a Regulation Mode and a Casual Mode, could solve a lot of the issues. Regulation mode would automatically restrict hats and set stats.
I would love for world record ghosts, gold medal ghosts and personal best ghosts to be available on every level when playing solo.
I would prefer a thumbs up/thumbs down or
system instead of a 5 star system. Players tend to interact with levels with either 5 or 1 star anyway. But a level with a bunch of 3 star votes ends up looking the same as a level with equal 1 star and 5 star votes. It also lets people try to bomb the ratings of level just to be mean. I think that showing the up votes, the down votes, the times favorited, and the plays a level has is more informative than the rating.Id love to be able to tell if I have played a level before when it looking through the menus.
Hot levels! a tab showing custom levels that have been played or interacted with the most in the recent days would be awesome.
followed level makers: In addition to being able to mark favorite levels, it would be nice to follow or favorite level makers and have a tab in your profile by the favorite levels that pulls up all of the levels of your followed level makers. I would also want an advanced filter in just about every menu that has custom levels. sort by tags, level types, ect.
cups/tourneys: inspired by mario kart, it would be nice if campaigns were put into cups and you could choose to race in cups of 3 or 4 levels with the same players back to back and have a score system with prizes at the end. Being able to set up custom cups would be fun too!
sending race invites to friends, pinging players by using @ username in chat, being able to mute notifications. Receiving notifications and invites from inside levels and level editor.
being able to set up private groups by hosting a level or cup and sending invites instead of having it public would be really nice. Being able to have the invite pull players from other servers or from inside another level or the level editor would be nice too.
A cosmetic and season system like the one in the game Fall Guys would make a lot of sense. I would have 2 currencies. Fred Coins and Creator Coins. Fred coins will be obtained from official maps like the campaigns, spotlighted maps or achievements. Creator coins could be earned for every medal you get in custom maps and by winning races. Different cosmetics could be purchased in the store with the different currencies.
Having Daily, Weekly and Seasonal achievements would be a great way to reward players for just getting on the game, or for going all in on a season.
Having the 2 different coins would reward players for playing the way that they would want to anyway. It gives player a reason to master the campaign and spotlight levels, play random levels that they have never played before, and to race on anything and everything against random players.
I am personally not a fan of the Super Jump. It probably prevents players from getting trapped in levels, but it feels slow means that map makers need to make levels with it in mind, which to me feels limiting instead of opening up new fun possibilities. But I won't complain too much if it stays.
It would be cool to be able to set modes on levels that essentially gave a permanent buff/power to the player, like having permanent items. Having the players all start with a specific infinite item, a specific hat, super flying cowboy mode also comes to mind. I don't have too many specific ideas on what that would look like, but I think that there are a lot of possibilities. there would have to be some sort of visual marker to show how the level is modified when on the level select screens.
Edit 2:
Having checkpoints and/or unsafe blocks would be nice.
having saved backgrounds
be able to copy, adjust, resize and customize stickers.
copying blocks or art, loading a new level, then pasting
be able to restart a level at any time. hotkey? for multiplayer this could start a new lobby for the level and take you there.
the ability to see the level name and level maker from inside the level easily. description, tags, ratings, be able to favorite and follow the level maker while playing the level and in the end of level screen.
The atmospheric effect that pr2 has is a good idea, but being able to turn it on or off would go a long way.
one of the issues it made was not being able to find the color you used because the atmospheric effect always made the color look different, so you cant find the color you used again. being able to hotkey some colors in the level editor would be nice.
being able to set up your own custom cups/campaigns and post them. even if they don't contain your own levels.
the ability to detach the camera from the player and look around the map while playing. that way the player can plan ahead or solve a puzzle. the ability for the level maker to lock this ability would be good too.
giving the level maker the ability to adjust the players camera would be cool. make it zoom in or out or even detach it and zoom way out and play with your tiny character running around the screen. then when you get to the edge, the camera jumps forward to another "panel".
being able to block the "art off" option for a level.
race against friends ghosts.
linking finish blocks so that on an objective level, you only need one of each of the linked ones. the ability to set a finish block amount would also be nice, that way they don't need to get all of them.
effect lines or zones instead of just hitting blocks with heads. cross a line or enter a zone to finish, change hats, get an item, change stats, change gravity. then things revert when you leave the zone or hit a reset line.
be able to draw on multiple layers on the same "layer". Overall, modernizing the art system to be more similar to art programs today.
Planning for types of players.
The lead designer of Magic the Gathering, Mark Rosewater, has a system that I like that applies here.
He has archetypes of players that they design cards for:
Timmy: Casual, Exciting, Variance, Social, often Young.
Johnny: Innovative, Creative, Self Expression, Puzzles to solve, Routing.
Spike: Competitive, Consistent, Optimizing, Goal Oriented.
Vorthos: Story, Aesthetic, Character, Art
Making sure that there are game modes and support for each type of player is important.
A Timmy wants to see cool items and effects. They want to battle with weapons. Get their friends involved and make new friends in the game. They tend to come and go more quickly, but be most of the player base at any given time.
Having user friendly modes where they can play over and over, and even if they aren't the best at the game, they still have a chance of winning is important. which is where high variance comes into play.
They need something cool, flashy and epic. These are the types of players who love seeing Don't Move levels or seeing simple glitches. Then get in the editor and make some quick levels themselves.
Having flashy and cool levels and effects that are user friendly, having a user friendly level editor and letting them interact with one another and be social is a great way to get a Timmy and keep them for as long as possible.
Timmy won't want to play much single player, they will be drawn to multiplayer a lot more.
Johnny: They want a challenge to solve. More likely to try to find a faster world record route or even a shortcut. This is the type of player that will want to break the game in their own way and make levels that could only be from them. Giving them ways to innovate and express themselves is important both in racing and level making. They want to find new combinations and ways to interact with the game.
Finely tuned, interesting mechanics, depth of mechanics, complicated or wacky elements that are consistent enough to use in a practical way.
These are the players who discover new interactions or glitches, master mechanics and make progress in the game.
A Johnny will use single player to explore and to solve. When playing multiplayer, they will want ways to show off their style and approach racing in a unique way.
Spike: A Spike wants to win. They will level up to get faster, they will master the levels that people race on and win again and again. They will learn the routes and try to optimize to get world records. They will not only beat the hardest level, they will try to do it better and faster. They will beat their friends and will be on top of that leaderboard. They want consistency. A race shouldn't be left to chance. The best player should win every time. They want ways to compete and show off their cultivated skills. Raise the bar, then raise it again.
Spike will play multiplayer to race and single player to time trial and beat challenges. As long as there are wins or rewards to be had, they will go for them.
Vorthos: They want a mascot, characters, a story, lore, theming, setting. Having custom cups and campaigns would help make levels that fit together in a story. You could do them in chapters, sequels, beginning middle and end. Even having a cute little guy here in there throughout a campaign can go a long way. I would want some of the campaign levels to have a story to them and even fit together. Some of the backgrounds and default art should fit right into some main themes of the game. Fred the Giant Cactus is a great example. One small thing for these types of players to attach themselves to.
When designing levels, game modes and features, I would be trying to either make something specific and perfect for one of these types of players or I would make sure that it had something for 2 or more of these players to like about it.
having tags on levels will help each player type find the types of levels that they want to play.
A good campaign would start by teaching well for everyone, but the young Timmy especially, introduce characters and story for Vorthos, have flashy epic gameplay for Timmy, introduce interesting mechanics for Johnny, give Spike ways to compete and win all within the first handful of levels. Then have modes that are tailor made for them to grow into as they find out what type of player they are and discover what they want out of the game.
I think that is what has made Platform Racing so successful. It really gave all types of players a reason to play and get involved.
It is a new era of gaming, and PR4 has a chance to be very intentional and successful with the way it is presented with the menus and game modes that are available.
As long as the community doesn't get too spread apart with the different modes. Which is why having overlap with target audiences with content, as well as challenges and achievements giving every player a reason to try out each type. At least until they get the reward and can go back to the way they want to play.
Long Live Platform Racing.
